Digital content such as games, videos and the like may be susceptible to unlicensed usage, having significant adverse impact on the profitability and commercial viability of such products. Commonly, such commercial digital content may be protected by a licensing verification program; however these may be circumvented by reverse engineering of the software instructions of the computer program which leaves them vulnerable to misuse.
One way of preventing circumventing of the software licensing program, may use a method of “obfuscation”. The term obfuscation refers to making software instructions difficult for humans to understand by deliberately cluttering the code with useless, confusing pieces of additional software syntax or instructions. However, even when changing the software code and making it obfuscated, the content is still readable to the skilled hacker.
Additionally, publishers may protect their digital content product by encryption, using a unique key to convert the software code to an unreadable format, such that only the owner of the unique key may decrypt the software code. Such protection may only be effective when the unique key is kept secured and unreachable to an unwanted party. Hardware based methods for keeping the unique key secured are possible, but may have significant deficiencies, mainly due to an investment required in dedicated hardware on the user side, making it costly, and therefore, impractical. Furthermore, such hardware methods have been successfully attacked by hackers.
Software copy-protection is currently predominantly governed by methodologies based on obfuscation, which are volatile to hacking or user malicious activities. There is therefore a need for a better technique for protecting sensitive software sections, such as licensing code. The present disclosure addresses this need.